Episode Report Card Pablo G: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Trying To Be Complex
By Pablo G | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.08.2009
p>Back at the birthday party shoot, things have deteriorated into some sort of Bollywood-themed... something. Slumdog Millionaire should be stripped of all its Oscars simply because it inspired this. Ella is hard at work trying to talk Jonah out of monogamy. "Hey, I love love. I just hate monogamy." Just as I'm about to say they're writing Ella as if she's a guy, she drools over one of the female partygoers. Way to cop out, MP, and turn her into a bi-sexual stereotype. It was good while it lasted, El. She continues trying to plant a seed of doubt and sees her opportunity when Jonah has to admit Riley's doubt. Ella asks Jonah if it doesn't concern him that after five years there's any doubt at all in Riley's mind. Jonah thinks on it.Lauren walks in on Riley being thoughtful and dumps her financial thoughtfulness on her. Riley suggests getting everyone at The Complex to scrounge up a loan for her. Lauren gets emotional about working so hard to get where she is. Some little tidbits about Lauren are revealed. She's Ella's roommate and at some point she has made out with Auggie. After the heart-to-heart, Lauren finds Riley's potential engagement ring. Riley responds with "nothing's really official" and the look on her face is worthy of ending this scene.
Back in Bollywood, Ella is getting ready to leave. She throw out an invite to the Reservoir Dogs screening in a way that sounds more like she's saying "you should've picked me instead of Riley" and points out Mr. Sarling AKA big movie producer. She encourages Jonah to introduce himself. He goes through with it, and everything is going fine until he tries to hand Sarling a copy of his film. He looks at Jonah incredulously. "I hire you to document my little girl's birthday and you're pimping your student film? Wow." He walks off, leaving Jonah with his goofy self to lament what he just did.
Back at the young love nest, Riley details her anxiety to Lauren and then falls back into her love for Jonah, but her love of his little idiosyncrasies is the same thing that gives her pause. She wants to know that he's going to be the type of guy who can seriously handle raising a family.
David shows up at the restaurant and talks to Auggie, where he gets the third degree about what happened. It's basically the same scene as the one David had with Ella earlier. He wonders if he could've killed Sydney during his drunken blackout and Auggie insists David isn't a murderer. Auggie differs from Ella in that he declares he wants to get revenge on whoever did this to Sydney. Otherwise, same scene in a kitchen. Maybe lobster would've spiced things up a bit.
Nightfall has descended on Bollywood. Demoted to videographer, Jonah is ready to get out of the scene of his embarrassment. He's on his way out with his friend when he's intercepted by Mr. Sarling's daughter who asks Jonah to go inside and get one last shot of her presents arranged to form the number eighteen. While inside, he catches Mr. Sarling fooling around with one of the partygoers. Oops. He gives Jonah an exasperated look like, "Didn't I already bid you good day, sir? Well, let me remind you, I said good day!" Though, I may be giving him a bit too much credit.
COMMERCIALS
We're with Dr. Michael Mancini again as he drives home. Why? You've got me. He's Bluetoothing to his wife and promises to read his son Goodnight Moon when he gets home. Goodnight, this scene. It just started and I want it over with already. Flashback to a meeting with Sydney where she tells him she's through with David. She tries to come onto him and he deflects her, but apparently he called her at some point, which leads Sydney to believe he wants her attention. She leaves him there after telling him she cares about him too much to see him in a bad marriage, and threatening to tell his wife about them. He's woken up from his flashback by cars honking. Thank you, jerkface drivers.
Lauren's on her dinner date with Clark Leto, the Magnificent Pedophile. Lauren is rambling, but things are going well. They seem to have hit it off. Then, slick momma's boy (his name is actually Toby. Could he be any creepier?) invites her back to his hotel where he was supposedly upgraded to a nice suite. Lauren declines the invite, citing no nookie on the first date, but Toby declares there'll be no second date. He has to fly home tomorrow. He takes this opportunity to reveal he caught a glimpse of her print-out bills and offers her a "donation" of $5,000. PROSTITUTION! Ahem... sorry. I just get so excited at the prospect of PROSTITUTION! He tries to give her the room number as she storms out of the restaurant. Momma taught you wrong, Toby.
Back at the birthday party, Jonah is hightailing it out of there with his buddy in tow. Just as they're about to escape, Sarling comes hurrying out after them. Sarling, being the crafty man you would expect, offers Jonah's friend -- who is slightly larger -- some dessert inside while he gives Jonah some "career tips." He asks Jonah where the tape is as if it's some sort of wonderful drug. Jonah understands the situation, but tells Mr. Sarling the tape contains footage of the event he can't sacrifice. Sarling is past all that and offers to buy Jonah's film for $25,000. Jonah is still being rational and not seeing the Hollywood magic happening in front of him as Sarling ups the offer each time Jonah expresses uncertainty. Mrs. Sarling comes out to get her husband just as his offer reaches $100,000 in addition to Jonah getting to write the feature. Mr. Sarling heads back into the party as his wife calls out to Jonah, "Remember to use that Lady Gaga song!" Jonah wide-eyed and mouth agape. Yeah, Lady Gaga puts that look on my face, too, Jonah.
COMMERCIALS
Lauren on her way back from her dating debacle runs into Violet by the pool. Violet asks if Lauren's OK, to which Lauren starts spilling all her problems. When she hears about the indecent proposal, Violet offers her mom's advice to always carry pepper spray in L.A. They get into the details and Violet's like, "That's a lot of money." She takes a minute to reflect and laughs to herself before saying, "You ended up not getting the guy or the money?" This seems to strike a chord with Lauren before Violet sends it home with, "You and me -- we're good girls. It's just not as fun." And I have to ask, why is Ashlee Simpson-Wentz philosophizing? This does not bode well.
Jonah comes home with Riley excited about lots of voicemails from Gary Sarling's agent. Apparently, the girl he was putting his lips on was his daughter's best friend. Yikes. Lots of crossing of age boundaries here. Anyway, he tells Riley what the messages are all about and goes into a speech about how he called Sarling to accept the offer on his way home because he thought if he said yes to him, Riley would say yes to Jonah. He thought it would show her how serious he is about his career. Then, he changes gears after he sees the look on Riley's face. The whole speech was a lie. He doesn't want to end up with Riley that way. So, if I understand this correctly, Riley gives in to Jonah's integrity and gets over her fear that he won't be a responsible adult even though he just dismissed financial security for them both. I guess. "You are a grown-up. A very adorable grown-up," Riley says. "I do. I do. I do." Glad we settled that story arc. It was really pressing. By the way, did one of you kill Sydney?
COMMERCIALS. The premier party winds down. Everyone's saying goodnight. Hey we've still got 9 minutes to go. Are you ducking out early? That's kind of rude.
Weird goodbye party memorial thing for Sydney. Auggie's making a toast and all he can muster really is Sydney was "a woman who was never boring." Jonah takes the opportunity to steal Sydney's thunder and announces his and Riley's engagement, even going so far as to make the comment that it's funny that on the day Sydney should die, he should start living. Really? Ella walks away in disgust. Not at the oblivious audacity of the comment, but at the thought of seeing Jonah off the market. Dav